BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping

Subject: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 12:25 AM

We had a fascinating discussion at the Thanksgiving dinner table today, regarding the significance and history or the signal made by raising the middle finger toward one to whom one wishes to display disdain. The other people at the table thought this signal came from the 1960's, but I insisted the custom was ancient and hallowed.
I promised to start a Mudcat thread on it as soon as I got home, to get the real facts on the matter.
So, when and where did the practice of flipping the finger originate? This page (click) appears to be quite comprehensive, but it it correct? What does Botkin have to say about it? Did Frank C. Brown address the matter? Hey, Randolph oughta know, right?
About.com is often a good source of answers to useless questions. Here's what it says:

The middle-finger gesture, which apparently has had phallic connotations in every culture in which it has been used, is much older [than the word "fuck"]. We know it dates back at least to ancient Greece, where it was referenced in "The Clouds," a play written by Aristophanes in 423 B.C. It was also well known to the Romans, who referred to it variously as digitus infamis ("infamous finger") and digitus impudicus ("indecent finger"). In all likelihood its origins were prehistoric.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 02:36 AM

Good gracious, Joe, just how young were the people at the table? The 60s is the 'olden days', maybe?

Reminds me of a 19-year-old piece of wet-behind-the-ears arrogance I once met. I was 35 or so. He was pretty full of himself, and he said, with an air of disdain toward my unworldiness, I am a child of the 60s, you know.

Jeff, I said, when they say 'child of the 60s', trust me, they don't mean someone who was born in the 60s.

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 08:33 AM

Properly speaking it ought to be "an adult of the 60s" since it means someone who came of age then. More or less.

And I think whatever we call it,it actually implies a certain amount of "unworldliness". We could do with more of that in the children of the Eighties, Nineties and Naughties.

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 09:33 AM

Rather than quibble with this erudite Offering, I will only point out that since the tetragrammaton of infamy is descended, rather directly, from an Indo-European root meaning 'to pierce with a spear', the primary overtone of the word has always been antagonistic. Hence, it's close linguistic cousins are 'feud, fight, foe, and frigate (the warship variety)'. Robert Graves, in his section on the Dactyls, in The White Goddess refers to it as 'the fool's finger', "because there are more fools than anything else". Graves associates the thumb with the phallus.

About.com may have confused 'the finger' with 'the fig', a similar gesture still used in some Mediterrnean countries. 'The fig' is made by extending the tip of the thumb between the first and second fingers. (Information from my annotated copy of The Divine Comedy by Dante, in which a demon uses the gesture.)

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 09:40 AM

I have heard that showing the first two fingers (Peace sign reversed) is an old British way of sayin' the same thing and goes back to the days of the "long bow"... Maybe someone can fill in the details since this is theextent of my knowledge on the subject...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 10:08 AM

Here's another take. Who knows about mudras? Mudras are those hand poses you see figures like Quan-Yin and Shiva and Krishna making in paintings, statuary, etc. They aren't random. They all have meanings. Has to do with activating nerve endings in your hands and fingers that in turn activate energy centers in the body. Anyhow, the middle finger represents patience. I have heard it said that when you hold up your middle finger by itself, it means you've lost your patience!

Makes sense to me, anyhow.

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: InOBU
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 10:35 AM

Ah yes the two long bow fingers... At Creasy and Agincourt, French Knights threatened to cut off the bow fingers of English Yoemanry, thereby sentencing them to a life a not being able to hunt Deer, let alone fight the French. Shortly after knocking off most of the French knights from about 300 yards with armor piercing three hundred pound bows (no kidding examples were found on the Rose) they raised their bow fingers to show that they were not cut off, and infact when the British, rather ingloriusly offed the French alies at Dunkirk, and did the same, it was fully aware of the Creasy and Agincourt conections, I am told.
Cheers
& V with no offence - I shoot a long bow....
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 11:08 AM

The story usually goes on to say that the archers indicated that they could still draw the bowstrings (on their yew longbows) by accompanying their gestures with shouts of "Pluck Yew". It's a great story, but I've never seen any reliable contemporary evidence presented.

I've always assumed that the raised middle finger gesture indicated "Up Yours".

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 11:41 AM

... except the word is "draw", Dave!

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 12:53 PM

Do they use the single finger in Australia or the two-fingered equivalent?

It seems to me that the two-finger version is much easier to do - giving someone the single finger involves trapping the first finger with the thumb, so it doesn't fly out as well. I find that to be quite a tricky manoeuvre. I think that's a good reason for preferring the reverse v-sign in moments of high indignation. But of course it's no good if people don't understand it.

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 12:58 PM

...just to add a tidbit, let me tell you that the woman who asked about this finger flipping phenomenomenon is an ordained minister.
I learned all about it in a Catholic seminary, but maybe they don't teach such things in the Church of Religious Science....
So, is "flipping the finger" practiced and understood throughout the world nowadays? Do people do it in Australia? In England? In Germany?
I know they do it in Ireland. They're Catholic.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 01:21 PM

"Flipping the finger" is actually a different gesture from "giving the finger", and in its ways quite elegant as well as eloquent.

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Gareth
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 08:46 AM

At Creasy and Agincourt, French Knights threatened to cut off the bow fingers of English Yoemanry, thereby sentencing them to a life a not being able to hunt Deer, let alone fight the French.

Not bad Larry, not bad .... But ....

1/. The threat was to cut off the hands of the Captured.

2/. The English Yeomanry were just that, Infantry, not archers.

3/. The Archers in the main, came from South Wales and the March.

4/. Hunting the deer was a capital offence in most of England.

I fear that you have fallen into the "For Wales, see England" trap, but then, so did Shakespeare !

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 11:19 AM

I learned it in grade school in the '50s -- the early '50s. We would also make the "horns" (fist with index and little fingers upraised); this was supposed to mean "stand on your head and stick your elbows up your arse." There were other such signs that I no longer remember, and yes Joe, this was a Catholic grade school.

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 05:46 PM

Both one-finger and two-finger 'salutes' were common in the 40s and my guess is that it wasn't new even then.

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: JennieG
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 06:49 PM

Here's an Oz answer! When I was a child a thousand years ago the single finger didn't seem to be used - the 'backwards peace sign' was, and it was regarded as being very very rude. In the early 70's the middle finger flip came in and was often accompanied by the phrase "sit on that and spin". (An interesting, if anatomically difficult, thought.)
These days it seems to be used a lot to the driver who cuts in front of one when 2 lanes merge. One has been known to flip the finger discreetly below window level - the aforesaid driver is usually male and large, and I am female and small.......and not stupid.
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Folklore of Finger Flipping
From: Sam L
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 10:48 AM

Joe, I remember reading that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled as to the obscenity of the gesture, which they found to be derogatory but not obscene, and which was said to date back to ancient Greece. I don't know if I can find the source, but I remember reading a book about gestures in general--how the hitch-hiker's thumb means "sit on this" some places in Europe, and doesn't help you get rides. I'll nose around.